66-67 Fairlane 427

Let me see........

Do the letters C.O.P.O. ring any bells ??

 

The engines and rest of the drivelines were factory installed. All that Yenko or Hurst did was to add some stripes, emblems, etc.

 

the '69 hurst cars the 455 was dropped in at the hurst preparing garage because of the gms no bigger than 400 rule acording to the american musclecar show and the 67 and part of 68 yenco's were 396 refitted with 427's that is how yenco talked copo to just start putting in the 427 info came from the same place

 

Wrong, at least on the Oldsmobile part. I'll let others talk about the Chevy side, I suspect it was similar, though.

I coordinated that build process on the Olds assembly line in Lansing for both the 68 and 69 Hurst Olds as well as numerous other special build processes at the time. The cars were built and driven over to Demmer with the 455 engines already in place. Mechanically, all they did at Hurst was change the shifter to the dual gate (from the regular Cutlass console shifter) and change the aircleaner on the 69 cars (68 cars used the regular 68 W30/W31 air cleaner). As said above the rest was cosmetic. 69's were painted all white in the Olds plant, 68's were all Peruvian silver except the deck lids which were black. Demmer added all the Hurst bling on top of that. Obviously lots more on the 69 than the 68.

What American Musclecars may have been saying (I don't recall the exact Clintonian wording), was that Hurst put 455's in a 442 and sold the concept to Oldsmobile management on the first few prototypes. I think that's the same thing Yenko did with Chevrolet. The first Hurst prototypes did start as regular production and preproduction 442's and had the 400's changed to 455's at Hurst/Demmer. There were a coupla convertibles and I believe a 4 speed car in those early prototypes, but not part of the on-line production build. In each case they were batch built.

Oldsmobile was always in trouble with GM Corporate anagement, so started the spin with Hurst that they were done differently. Olds was still Mega-pissed with the GM edict of no multiple carb cars (except Corvette) after the 66 model. They had just tooled up the L69 system the year before (1966) and once the W30 package was developed on that, attracted a little too much attention by the visored vest wearers at Corporate. They hoped to get back more on the inverstment than just the one year production.

Olds (and I'll bet Pontiac and Buick) had an internal system like COPO at the time , but less elaborate (smaller company back then, GM pretty much let each of the motor divisions do their own thing and just collected the buckets of loot). Chevy was always run by Mother General except Engineering. Ours at Oldsmobile was done on engineering red border releases (as contrasted to production releases). It covered the costs of the special handing and processing necessary for the non-standard production builds. It was kind of like a work order to manufacturing from Product Engineering.

It was in later years that GM started "helping" the divisions and eventually neutered them all down into a handful of marketing people, a few dedicated engineers, and a whole gaggle of accountants, timing clerks, HR, legal staff, etc. etc. Nice job guys..........

 

True, that is why the PSMCDR does not allow pre 1969 Yenkos.

 

thanx to all on the info.i new dave would know the true story on the hurst.as far as yenco did not know pre '69 was not allowed.again thanx dave & steve :error: ou: o No:
ed

 

And just in case anyone doesn't believe Dave H. regarding the Hurst Olds engines (who can you really trust these days, anyhow?), I've personally heard Doc Watson himself state the same: the 455s were actually installed on the assembly line at Olds. It was all a lie to keep Corporate happy. I suspect Corporate knew as much; don't ask, don't tell?

 

I also spoke with guys working on the line during the Olds Cenntenial in '97. They said you could see that red 455 engine (for the H/O in '68 and '69) in the line a mile away. Since it was the only 455 in an 'A' body chassis, it was highly visable! They visited the H/O parking area and stated they had not seen that many H/O's in one place since they were lined up in the transport yards! :bglasses:

 

I always suspected that Olds guys were the 'don't ask, don't tell' types :shock:

 

Yeah, just like Zora was a pillar of truth! :moonu:

 

Hey Wayne

If your still doing this project did you notice there are four sets of 427 Fairlane exhaust manifolds on E-bay!

And a NOS 427 side oiler block with a $4000 buy it now!

 

Wayne,
Just got off the phone with the guy who has a medium-riser that I told you about at Englishtown. Said for you to give him a call. PM sent

 

Rob's a great guy isn't he LON....How come he didn't make the trip Saturday though?? I have his phone number but don't want to bothe rhim

 

Thanks Lon,I'll call him.I was really hoping to meet him last weekend!Maybe he'll come to The Valley in May?I just got outbid on ebay,Radio delete cluster.RATS!!!